Some of the world's biggest media companies have announced a copyright protection pact with a group of video-happy net businesses that doesn't include Google and YouTube.
Earlier today, we dutifully reported that this announcement was on the way, and now it's here. Video-sharers Dailymotion, Microsoft, MySpace, and Veoh have …

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MPPC Mk II

In 1908 Thomas Edison set up the Motion Picture Patents Company along with Eastman Kodak and a number of other studios. Its main purpose was to protect its members' patents and interests, usually with batteries of lawyers. By 1915 all its patents were cancelled, and in 1917 it was declared an illegal monopoly and shut down. Sounds like some people don't learn from history.

Hollywood could also do with remembering where its money comes from. Gerald Ratner learnt to his cost what happens if you annoy your customers, and the failed DIVX disk format (not the video codec) shows that the consumer doesn't always swallow what the industry would like them to have.

Drawing the lines

Now are beginning to see the polarisation within the big corporates on this issue: Google/Open Source/Linux/IBM on one side, the media congloms/Microsoft on the other. This is where the copyright war moves into the endgame. Google has the audience and the financial and political clout to withstand the worst the cartels can hurl at them, and they have the great unwashed on their side. Microsoft and the cartels have a lot of clout themselves, with the government and courts likely to support them. The divisions that will arise from this will spill over into other aspects of life and the fight for freedom online, and whichever way it goes, the future of Internet expression will be changed forever.

there really is only one rule

Don't post it unless you made it shot it or drew it yourself pretty simple will keep you out of court always. Going along with this music should be the same. Don't use your favorite TV shows or clips from movies or anything you didn't actually produce yourself.